How to Teach Poetry in Scotland? More Joy, Less Decoding, Says National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead

Scotland's National Poet Laureate (in Scotland, referred to as the "Makar") is Liz Lochhead. In a new article at The National, Lochhead, who rose to the prestigious post in 2011, speaks out against the current trends in classrooms for the teaching of poetry. From The National:

Scotland's Makar has launched an attack on how poetry is taught in schools, describing methods as “disgraceful” and blaming the way the subject is examined for putting children off the art form for life.

Liz Lochhead said the Scottish Government’s education policy Curriculum for Excellence, which seeks to foster creativity, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which sets exam papers, were taking an over-analytical and technical approach that spoiled pupils’ enjoyment.

“Exams are the problem. The SQA is the problem. I don’t think they are examining what’s happening. Curriculum for Excellence was conceived in good faith as a way of making everybody’s education more creative,” she told The National.

“I’m not trying to demonise teachers here, but the SQA and Curriculum for Excellence are not having the desired effect. You don’t learn about poetry to make you hate poetry for the rest of your life, but the effect at the moment is that. We should face up to the fact that what we are doing is not working.”

She noted how the reading of the WH Auden poem Stop All the Clocks in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral had inspired people to read the poem at funerals and had reawakened an interest in the reciting of poetry.

Yet among schoolchildren, teaching methods still placed too much emphasis on “de-coding” the meaning of a poem written down, rather than encouraging pupils to read or listen to it being read out loud.
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Continue at The National.